61–70 of 146 posts
We really live in the age of head-in-sand. How do you do anything about that? Somehow reality has become not just optional and uncertain in our policies, perceptions and opinions, but downright irrelevant. When there's no merit in even trying to be truthful and accurate, well... you get this.
What needs to happen for Long Term Earth? 1) The economics of every process must take into account the cost of the environment. If it's not going to biodegrade, that costs. If it comes from an unsustainable logging practice, that costs. If came in a boat from across the world, that costs. Adding the cost of environmental consequences to all stages of production opens up the room for investors to sensibly bet on less…
> A global body needs to be created to handle environmental policy I think some people have too much faith in the ability of politicians and bureaucrats to protect the environment. A better solution would be decentralized decision making. Place ownership of the rain forest in private hands and let the market determine the most valuable use of the land. If a sufficient number of people believe the rain forest should b…
What do the EU and USA do? Import more soybeans for their growing livestock industry. No penalties for anything, only rewards.
I don't have the time or patience to engage, but for the ones that don't have a side in Brazilian politics, the Amazon should be fine. Bolsonaro is a fool with words, but has shown to be well intended. He'll probably come around on this particular issue (as it has already happened a few times during his government).
He’s been dubbed the Trump of the tropics. Similar political leanings. The environment is not a priority. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/jair-bolso...
What needs to happen for Long Term Earth? 1) The economics of every process must take into account the cost of the environment. If it's not going to biodegrade, that costs. If it comes from an unsustainable logging practice, that costs. If came in a boat from across the world, that costs. Adding the cost of environmental consequences to all stages of production opens up the room for investors to sensibly bet on less…
> A global body needs to be created to handle environmental policy I think some people have too much faith in the ability of politicians and bureaucrats to protect the environment. A better solution would be decentralized decision making. Place ownership of the rain forest in private hands and let the market determine the most valuable use of the land. If a sufficient number of people believe the rain forest should b…
I find it much easier to believe that this satire, because were it up to the “Market”, the rainforest would be gone, and every river polluted. Short-term profits are incompatible with environmental protection. Just because a few men get rich doesn’t mean the result is what’s overall best for society. The “market” (quotes necessary because it’s so much more complicated than that) has decided that continuing to burn fossil fuels is what’s best, and look how that’s working out.
The incentives have to change. Making money hand over fist typically only benefits a select few, to the detriment of the many. How many more examples do we need?
A cocaine addict, refusing reality. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48787996
A cocaine addict, refusing reality. https://www.bbc.com/news/world-latin-america-48787996
If you just read the article you posted, one military that was flying in a different airplane than the president was (it was a stand-by backup aircraft) was arrested with 39kg of cocain. The president's response? "I just wished the arrest happened in Indonesia", where they have death penalty for such crimes. (source https://g1.globo.com/jornal-nacional/noticia/2019/06/29/pena... ) Just so that you know, when Bolsonar…
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Yeah, this is the norm now, scientific truths are lies and conspiracy theories are the ultimate truth. All populist politicians are doing this and their followers love it.
Well a lot of this is due to how this has been presented to by the media beforehand. e.g. There is a scare story at least once a week that is plastered over newspapers/news sites such as " Having a bacon sandwich could lead to bum cancer!!!! ", when the headline is clearly salacious. The actual research probably had a sensible conclusion of "Those who have had consistently more red meat, have an increased chance of c…
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah, this is the norm now, scientific truths are lies and conspiracy theories are the ultimate truth. All populist politicians are doing this and their followers love it.
Well a lot of this is due to how this has been presented to by the media beforehand. e.g. There is a scare story at least once a week that is plastered over newspapers/news sites such as " Having a bacon sandwich could lead to bum cancer!!!! ", when the headline is clearly salacious. The actual research probably had a sensible conclusion of "Those who have had consistently more red meat, have an increased chance of c…
Also, how can you brand somebody as "patriotic" when his party is a US-based corporation with links to the Russian government and tax havens?
Sad to see this rubbish on HN. Farage plays to the same racist tendencies as Trump and Bolsonaro do, with constant dog-whistling. He's absolutely controversial and hardly effective: he still has no MP in the UK Parliament after 15 years of trying, and has accomplished absolutely nothing over two mandates in the EU Parliament beyond annoying even his own allies.
It's not the "smearing" that build his success, but a situation of sustained economic weakness of the white working classes that fosters a climate of anger against migrants (who are seen as cheaper competition). That BNP fella was similarly successful for a while. Also, Farage's support is built on social networks, where his messages are spread without a debate, let alone "smears".
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And that's fine. A productive discussion can be had along those lines. However if someone refuses to even acknowledge that there are facts then there's no discussion to be had. It almost feels like we're in an age with a kind of new post-modernism. Everyone can have their own reality and make up their own "facts" to fit. This makes science and philosophy irrelevant because there is no shared reality that can be inves…
IMHO, it stems from never updating our basic education from an information-scarce world to an information-flooded one. I'm firmly in favor of making a media consumption class mandatory for primary education. Essentially a mix of logic & fallacies, evaluating sources, and meta scientific news literacy.
There are other problematic sacred cows that are really hard to broach that similarly touch on information overload. We've got copyrights that allow rent-seeking behavior even where the value lies not in the creation, but in the shared social history, and in any case have durations that are out of whack with the encouragements needed to create. We've got a first amendment protection of speech that protects very valuable discourse and the ability to criticize, yet is only protects from the government, not the increasingly important non-governmental organizations (like but not exclusively social-media platforms). And it's a blunt tool too; it protects from imposed silence, but it does not protect from drowning out with noise. There's no framework for dealing with, essentially, really smart spam - and even if there were some countermeasure, the first amendment would likely render it illegal! And while I think it's perfectly reasonable for corporations to have a voice, I don't think people really considered the downsides of lobbying and other intentionally misleading messaging when reinterpreting incorporation to include first-amendment protections.
But suggest that the first amendment is flawed now, and people immediately jump to the conclusion that you personally must want to live in a Stalinist dictatorship.